


Death

by HamburrgerBites



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Inspired by a textpost, M/M, One Shot, POV Alternating, Possible sequel, Sad Ending, Soulmate AU, everyone is sad and everything hurts, interchanging POVs, much sad very cry, read only if you wanna be sad, references to the musical here and there, sad soulmate au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-06 20:26:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15202787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HamburrgerBites/pseuds/HamburrgerBites
Summary: In which Hamilton has a chronic secret that had shaped the way he lived his life.“Why do you always write like you’re running out of time?”





	Death

**Author's Note:**

> Whoops accidentally wrote a sad.  
> Saw a [tumblr textpost](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/4f/5b/b4/4f5bb4b9a82729c3f17067a3f093702e.jpg) and the idea just came and wouldn’t leave:  
> A soulmate AU where instead of being born with the FIRST words your soulmate says to you somewhere on your skin, it’s the LAST words. Super sad, mis amigos.  
> Also, this isn’t written in the usual style of writing of my other fics (which are usually more fluffy). I guess you can call it my other voice?  
> Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy.

The words were scratchy, written as if with the ink of a fountain pen.

_Please don’t leave me._

In this way, Burr knew that he was the one who would die first. He ran a finger over the words. When he was younger, he couldn’t decipher them properly. They were written in a scrawl, as though the writer’s mind was already on the next sentence and the hand was helplessly trying to catch up. Nestled across the length of his inner right forearm, Burr saw the words hundreds of times a day. He wondered about the people who had their words written on less visible places of their bodies. Were they glad to have the reminder hidden? Or did their words nag in their brains as incessantly as Burr’s eyes laid on his?

He did it so frequently that regular associates had made the connection, and every time Burr stretched out his arm to reach for a file, or to offer a handshake, he would see them flicking their eyes to the spot Burr had imprinted in his mind. They couldn’t see what his words were, of course, just as he couldn’t see what theirs were. Fate was merciless but never deceitful.

Burr wondered often how the scene would play out. Would he be on a hospital bed? On blacktop? The words on his arm gave away two certain things. One, he was to die before his soulmate. Two, they would have an established relationship. Burr hoped that meant they would be able to divulge each other’s words much earlier. Then he’ll go through the rest of his life adamantly, insistently, defiantly avoiding using the words on his soulmate’s skin as if Fate was an entity that could be thwarted.

Often, Burr wondered what those words were.

* * *

Hamilton’s words were at the small of his back.

He remembered crying as a child, thinking he didn’t have them. Thinking he didn’t have a soulmate, or that he’d die before they could meet. But one day he found a full-length mirror, and he cried again for he’d found the words, and it was like God finally answered a prayer he’d been desperately reciting. They were two words written in a single contraction, the handwriting precise and tidy as if the writer thought over every word many times before putting any on paper.

_You’re—_

That was it.  _You’re_. A cut off contraction. Hamilton had been relieved when he was younger, but now it was like a taunt in his face, reminding him that it represented his entire life—abrupt, unheard, lacking.

 _You’re_ —

I’m what? Going to die? The love of your life? Going to be okay?

Hamilton thought about it so much he knew one of his guesses must’ve been the one. But, of course, he could never be certain. Could never know what comes after. Ever.

He couldn’t deny that, growing up, the single word had caused him to be a panicky person, flinching at every usage of the contraction. It may have even worsened his condition. Even now, after years of attempting to control his nerves, it still made his heart jump into his throat five or ten times a day, knowing anything can happen any time and that Fate had a way of winning the game no matter how hard he worked or tried to cut himself away from society.

But he never could stay indoors on his own for long. The fear was adrenaline. The more afraid he was, the faster he ran. The faster he improved. The faster he climbed the ladder.

“Why do you always write like you’re running out of time?”

Hamilton looked up, but his hand kept writing the rest of the sentence.

Burr was at the opposite end of the table, an open book in front of him as he sat lazily with his chin in his palm, quirking a brow up at him.

Hamilton returned his gaze to his essay, his face stone, his mind buzzing with a hundred replies at once. A long moment of silence passed and then he heard the resigned rustling of a page being turned. He felt bad immediately. Was Burr so used to being ignored that he wouldn’t repeat himself even with Hamilton?

“I’m—” Hamilton sighed and dropped his pen. “I never thought I’d live past twenty,” he confessed. Burr was one of the handful of people Hamilton trusted, and honesty came as easily as their effortless friendship.

Burr met his eyes. Waited, for he knew Hamilton would say more.

Burr’s patience made Hamilton’s heart beat faster. Hamilton was always talking, talking, talking, and four out of five times, he could see the light dying in his listeners’ eyes as their concentration waned and their thoughts wandered away from Hamilton’s desperate ideas.

But Burr... Burr always listened. Every word. Little features in his face would change—an upturn of the lips, a twitch of the eye—indicating agreement, understanding, frustration, displeasure, even anger at times. But all the emotions that passed across his face meant that he was listening, even when he didn’t like what he was saying.

Hamilton felt heat rising to his cheeks and realised he’d just been staring into Burr’s eyes for the last couple of minutes as Burr held his gaze steadily. He dropped his eyes to the table.

“Where I come from, some get half as many,” Hamilton explained quietly, neither lying nor speaking the whole truth, heart hammering from more than one cause. “I have to make every moment last.” He lifted his eyes to show that he was done. He didn’t want to say more for fear he’d break down and cry from years of accumulated, suppressed emotion right there in the library.

“I see,” Burr said, head tilting slightly. He nodded once and went back to his book.

Hamilton’s heart raced. He didn’t know what he had expected or hoped Burr would say, but somehow Burr’s quiet acceptance was better than any words that could’ve been uttered. Heaven knows Hamilton had heard every common response possible— _I’m sorry. Oh, no, that’s horrible. It will get better_. And truth to be told? He was tired of them. He  _knew_  they sympathised him. He  _knew_  his childhood had been less than great. He  _knew_  it will get better. That was why he was working so damn hard each day he woke and found himself still breathing. People didn’t need to tell him that.

So Hamilton returned to his essay and softly, maybe too softly to be audible, he said, “Thank you.”

And Burr in the same softness said, “You’re welcome.”

A rustling sounded as he turned to a new page, and Hamilton sat there with his body warm, wondering why he wanted the day to never end.

* * *

As the days passed, Burr found himself spending more time than he was required to spend with Hamilton.

They would sit together in a library or office or even one of either of their living rooms at times, and they would go over legal work. The efficiency of both of their brains—different but compatible—made the work almost effortless to complete. And then they would sit back in languid accomplishment and Hamilton would find his notebook and pen and start expanding on ideas that had flashed through his mind in the last couple of hours while Burr opened up a book and consumed and analysed ideas instead of producing them from scratch. Sometimes he would write, too—bits and pieces, maybe even lines of scattered poetry. Sometimes he would get up to stretch and leave only to come back with cups of coffee or sandwiches.

But always they would find themselves preferring to be nowhere else as they sat in that relaxed silence that in the beginnings of their acquaintance, Burr hadn’t thought was possible when it came to being in Hamilton’s presence.

Burr only realised he’d been watching Hamilton write—his eyes expressive of every thought that crossed his restless mind—when the man looked up and met his gaze.

“Yes?” Burr asked, as if Hamilton had been the one to stare.

They were in Burr’s living room today, and Burr sat back on his couch, his book on his lap, his eyes unable to flick away from how the light from his fireplace danced on Hamilton’s face. Hamilton had his papers and notebook and pens strewn atop Burr’s coffee table as he sat on the floor with his legs crossed.

The firelight glimmered in Hamilton’s eyes. “Do you ever feel like you’re not fulfilling your life’s purpose?”

Burr didn’t blink. “Yes.”

Hamilton’s eyes softened, just slightly, and Burr wondered what was the emotion behind the movement. “I feel like I could have been a greater person,” he confessed, “had circumstances been different.”

Burr’s heart clenched in a way that shallowed his breathing. Why did it feel like Hamilton had just spoken aloud something that Burr had been tormented with all his life?

Hamilton played with his pen, and now his gaze was cast far away. “I could have done so many things. Could have achieved so much.” He gave a small huff of humourless laughter, and Burr saw that his eyes had only been reflecting the light of the flames so well because they were glistening. “I feel like such a waste of space.”

Burr blinked his own prickling eyes and looked away. A scenario had passed through his mind in the seconds before he turned away, but he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t put aside his book, settle down onto the floor next to Hamilton, and say comforting words to him when he himself was still battling with the conviction that he was nothing but a failure. Always waiting. Always consuming but not producing anything new, anything significant enough to change the world. Always just— _adequate_. Passable. Above average but not the best, in anything. Always feeling like he was meant for more—so much  _more_ —but never being good enough, lucky enough, brave enough to even glance the surface of what he could have been.

The cushion beside him sunk and Burr turned to find Hamilton with the firelight brighter than ever in his eyes as he looked tortured—and Burr knew that the same expression was on his own face.

“I’m sorry,” Hamilton said as he fought the tears as ardently as Burr was fighting his.

Those words... Burr’s breath hitched in his throat. When was the last time he heard them being spoken by a voice other than his own? Even as a child, even during the funerals, he had heard so many other words but those— _He was a great man. You must be proud. They wouldn’t have wanted you to be sad_. He’d grown so accustomed to giving but not receiving—supressing and not submerging—that he felt as if he should remember every detail of this moment and hold it like a charm over his heart. Firelight in Hamilton’s eyes. Warmth in his proximity. Empathy in his words.

Hamilton reached out and gently brushed Burr’s cheek, the hand coming away wet. Burr’s heart hammered, his face heating up, as Hamilton leaned in and—a pause—rested his forehead against Burr’s, closing his eyes as he did. Their noses touched, their breaths on each other’s lips, and if Burr were to tilt his head just so, they would be—

But Burr stayed still. He clutched at his book with trembling fingers. It was too intimate. His body wanted both to run away and never leave at the same time. When was the last time he’d let someone see him cry? When was the last time he touched someone like this? Did he ever?

Hamilton fluttered open his firelit eyes and drew back just enough to let them meet each other’s gazes clearly. Burr prayed for something to interrupt their moment—a phone call, a knock on the door, a sudden dawning of sense and propriety.

But none of those came—as exactly as none of Burr’s prayers had ever been answered before—and Hamilton found Burr’s hand and laced their fingers together. The contact was immense but brief. Hamilton gave a gentle squeeze, one which Burr couldn’t fathom the full meaning of, and then let go. He rose from the couch and settled into the same posture back onto the spot he had been sitting on the floor, and it was as if he had never left it in the first place.

* * *

After that day, Hamilton tried hard to convince himself that nothing had changed.

They continued to meet each other in both public and private places to complete legal matters and then idle away the rest of the day with their respective hobbies. But once or twice during each of their shared time of company, Hamilton would be reminded that a threshold had been stepped over. Burr would come back with their coffee, and he would visibly colour when Hamilton’s fingers touched his when before he hadn’t (or hadn’t as to be noticed, Hamilton wasn’t sure). Hamilton would find them sitting on opposite ends of the table, and then find them again minutes later sitting right next to each other now, shoulders and elbows and knees bumping.

It was likewise even outside of their appointments.

Hamilton tried hard to persuade himself that he was just perceiving things that had always been happening. That when Burr walked into a conference room and chose a seat closest to him instead of his usual seat near the corner, it was for convenience and nothing besides. That when they found themselves spending time in the quiet of each other’s houses even when they didn’t have work to do, it was because habits had formed and were too inconsequential to be broken.

Hamilton, also, tried very hard to forget that when he’d leaned into Burr that momentous day, he had been intending to do something different than resting his forehead against Burr’s.

A familiar sharp pain pierced through his chest, and Hamilton gripped it, trying not to show how much it hurt.

“What’s wrong?”

They were on Hamilton’s couch, Burr with his book on one end and Hamilton with his pen and half-finished essay on the other. The pain eased as quickly as it was intense, and Hamilton gathered his legs up on the cushions in a show of comfort.

“Hmm?” Hamilton hummed as if distracted, eyes on his essay. “What was that?”

He wrote five increasingly nonsensical sentences before Burr relented.

“Nothing.”

He went back to his book, and Hamilton crossed out the sentences and reoriented himself. Time passed and as usual, there wasn’t a second episode of piercing pain on the same day, so Hamilton dismissed it. When he looked up from his finished essay, he was surprised to see that sunlight had faded, and he had had begun to need to squint. He looked over the other end of the couch.

Burr leaned on his palm, his elbow on the armrest, as soundlessly, he dozed.

Hamilton smiled. The man was working harder than he realised he was. Hamilton never saw the same book on Burr’s lap twice. He wished he could read as widely and deeply as Burr did. How much knowledge must his mind contain. How many lives must he have experienced. Burr had a way of understanding people—their motivation, ulterior motives, hidden opinions—from mere brief interactions. He could step into the shoes of a person he’d met only days before and see the entire world from their eyes. Once, the company held a costume party, and Burr had said,  _She’s the type to dress up to stand out from the crowd but still make it seem like it’s for other people’s benefit_. The said person arrived to the party turning glances as a technicolour clown as she made her audience laugh. Burr had said of another,  _He’ll turn out to be something he was raised to see himself as—regal but popular_. The said person arrived as Prince Charming, his head dipped in a show of humility as he went around the room to receive compliments.

Hamilton had asked Burr what he'd made of him, days after the party when his curiosity won over. Burr had looked into his eyes, and Hamilton watched in wonder as the man worked his jaw. Parted, closed, reparted his lips. A crease dipping between his ordinarily unwrinkled brows.

 _I'm not sure_ , Burr had admitted in the end—plain, offering no hypotheses—and Hamilton couldn't understand why, but as with all of Burr's replies, it had felt infinitely  _right_.

He turned himself fully now to face the napping Burr, stretching his legs out onto the cushions as he leaned back against the armrest. Even with his toes extended, he still couldn’t reach far enough to touch him. Almost, but not enough. Always just almost. Burr was as out of his reach as many of his desperate goals were. Hamilton stared at the man and let out a slow sigh—of admiration? Of want? Of regret?

He let his eyes close as the darkness blinded him to nothing but a congealed, black mass of uncertainty.

* * *

Hamilton was shaking, shaking. He was hanging for dear life on to a rail as screams drowned out his own shouts. The sky was yellow and cars were flying—roofs, trees, humans. He saw a baby pried away from its mother’s hold as it, too, went sailing up to its airborne grave. Hamilton felt his own feet lifting from the ground and panic seized him as white and paranoid as his desperation to stay alive— _I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die!_

“—ton! Hamilton!”

Hamilton gasped, his eyes snapping open. Instantly that blinding pain stabbed through his chest and he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe,  _he couldn’t breathe_!

“Hamilton, hey, look at me.  _Look at me_.”

Hamilton’s eyes found Burr’s—and they were as wild and afraid as he knew his own eyes must be. But Burr gripped his shoulders and steadied them both. Hamilton felt the pressure of his hands—the dig of something alive on something alive—as the pain in his chest subsided.

“We’re okay,” Burr confirmed the hope. He was kneeling beside the couch Hamilton was lying on. “We’re safe in your home and the sun is just rising and we’re indoors with no threat around. We’re okay.”

Hamilton took in a shaky breath— _I’m alive, I’m still alive_ —and crumpled.

He cried into Burr’s embrace as the man hugged him. It was the first time they’d held on to each other so tightly, and it wasn’t how Hamilton had pictured it at all. He was doing everything wrong. He was making everything so much worse.

He pushed himself free and said in a grated voice that was too grieved to have been used to mean the words, “Thank you.”

Burr took his hands, not giving in. “You had a nightmare.”

“Yes.”

“You were in pain.”

He looked away too quickly. “No.”

Burr squeezed his hands, the act seeming involuntary. “I called your name but you didn’t budge. So I shook you, and you started to scream—”

“It’s not your fault,” Hamilton said, hearing guilt in Burr’s tone.  He sat up, the rest of his body still facing the other end of the couch as he leaned back onto the armrest. “I have—It happens sometimes.”  _It happens a lot_. “The littlest things set it off. Out of the blue. Without warning. Always only once a day.” And now his mouth ran away and was describing more than just the nightmares.

Burr sensed it immediately. “You were clutching your chest. Exactly the way you had clutched it yesterday.”

Hamilton pulled his hands out of Burr’s hold and wished the man wasn’t so perceptive. “I’m fine.”

“What are you not telling me?”

Hamilton swallowed the lump in his throat. Gave a show of huffing. “I don’t tell you absolutely every single little detail of myself, Burr, no matter how much I talk. There are a lot of things I don’t tell you.”

Burr rose off his knees and sat right on the same cushion Hamilton was sitting, his eyes unrelenting. Hamilton’s entire body burned and he frantically looked anywhere else but at the man.

“Do you trust me, Alexander?”

And here was the part Hamilton began to break. “Yes,” he answered, his voice a torn whisper. He felt the tears running down his face before he could try to stop them. “That’s the problem. I trust you so much, Aaron. I—”

Pain—searing, white, unexpected—knocked Hamilton over like blasts of jagged hail. He felt one side of his body paralysing instantly—and in a moment of knowing, his hand flew out to catch Burr’s shirt. It was a second episode of pain on the same day—episodes of pain on two consecutive days—when those never happened before—and that was how he knew he had finally run out of time.

Burr was awash with cold alarm. He was halfway on his feet—he needed to get a doctor—he needed to—

But Hamilton yanked him back by his shirt. “Please don’t leave me,” he gasped, and Burr’s world turned upside down.

The words on his forearm scorched his skin as if they had been pressed there by a rod of iron, and Burr knew both too late and too soon that he had been wrong—completely and utterly wrong.

He wasn’t going to die first.

Hamilton saw Burr’s eyes widen in a way they had never widened before, and the realisation dawned on him as clearly and as horribly as if Fate itself had whispered it into his ear.

“You’re—” Burr choked, and as Hamilton had known all his life, he was never to hear the rest of the sentence.

Hamilton felt a split second of quiet limbo. Time and all sound paused in honour of his lifelong efforts, vain though they had been.  _Ah,_ he thought, mind restless even when shutting down. _I’ve imagined this so much it feels more like a memory_. He always knew how it would have happened, always knew it would happen early. What a shame, what a shame. Had only certain things been different. Had he only had the money to afford better medical care. Had only the words on the small of his back been more uncommon. Had he only been greater than the sum of his parts. Then, maybe, maybe, he would’ve gotten a few extra years. Maybe he could’ve let himself hope more, rest more, pursue more than just an inanimate legacy.

Maybe, on that momentous day, when he’d wiped away Burr’s tears, he wouldn’t have changed his intentions at the last minute—wouldn’t have thought to spare Burr of sharing a grief he carried everywhere he went, every second of his life—and would have kissed him. Kissed him and told him,  _I love you, Aaron_.  _The day I met you was the best day of my life_.  _Will you accept me?_

Always just almost...

Hamilton closed his eyes as his limbo unpaused—time resumed flowing and birds outside began singing to the sun—and his hand fell limp from Burr’s shirt.

“No,” Burr breathed, head reeling, heart writhing. “No, please.” He gathered Hamilton into his arms, but Hamilton’s eyes were closed and were closed forever. “Please, please,” Burr begged, and he was crying, crying for the man he’d never thought would have been the one.  _Why_? Why had he been so blind? He’d been waiting, and waiting, and waiting for that fateful meeting—never considering the chance that they had already met.

“You’re my soulmate,” Burr wept—too late, too soon—finishing the sentence that Hamilton had pondered over so many times when he had been alive. He held Hamilton’s body close to his heart and cried into the man’s hair—and screamed and screamed until his voice failed him as he had failed the one he loved.

The song the birds outside were singing lifted into the air, the melody louder, the tone now distinguishable to be one of lament, and it was as if wailing had filled the streets for Hamilton and Hamilton alone.

* * *

Burr woke in the dusk holding on to the man he’d gained and lost in a day.

 _Ah_. It hadn’t been a dream.

He was in a nightmare.

Burr was half-blind, half-unconscious, when he found his phone and dialled.

“Hello?” Laurens’s voice answered, too loud to the silence of sorrow. Laughter, impossible laughter, rose up from the background. “Guys, shut up for a minute, I’m on the phone!” The laughter diminished, and Laurens’s voice came back amused. “Hey, Burr, what’s up?”

Burr stared at Hamilton’s body, lying on the couch as if merely sleeping.

“Burr?” He could hear a scraping of a chair. A sudden urgency in Laurens’s tone as if he could tell, for Burr never called. The voices in the background died down immediately. “What’s wrong?”

Burr felt fresh tears pooling in his eyes and his voice was as broken as his heart. “Alexander...”

A hitch of breath on the other side of the line. “Where are you?” More chairs scraping back.

“His house,” Burr replied in a sob, and the phone dropped from his hand. Burr collapsed beside Hamilton’s resting place. Buried his face in his arms and cried until his sight faded, until his breathing faded, and he fell unconscious—as closely unconscious to Hamilton as he could be, and it felt almost like peace.

* * *

His body stirred him away at the sound of the front door opening. Footsteps rushed in and now Burr wasn’t alone in his grief.

“No,” Laurens breathed. Burr dimly registered how similar it was to his own reaction. “Alex,” he sobbed, and Burr heard him crumpling to the floor.

Burr was awake but dormant, his face still buried in his arms on the couch, as more footsteps entered, and he heard more voices, more incredulity, more sorrow.

“I got him,” he heard, and hands rested on his shoulders. Burr felt nothing, thought nothing, as Mulligan wrapped his arms around him and lifted him off the floor. Briefly he saw Lafayette hugging a crying Laurens before Mulligan carried him into an enclosed hallway and into the guest bedroom. He was laid down, tucked in, squeezed, as Mulligan sat heavily onto the bed, too.

Burr closed his eyes and fell asleep to Laurens’s similar weeping and Mulligan’s quivering hand never leaving his shoulder.

* * *

When he stirred awake again, it was to Lafayette bringing in a tray.

The Frenchman’s eyes were swollen and red, but he gave Burr a brave smile. “I’ve brought you dinner.”

Burr reclosed his eyes. Dinner. Was it the same night? The next night? Everything was as dark as it had been. As soulless, as unimportant.

How long since he’d lost him?

“You need to eat.”

Burr raised his arms over his face and said nothing. He heard a low sigh. The soft clatter of the tray on the bedside table. Footsteps. A single involuntary sob. Silence.

Burr fell back to sleep.

* * *

He awoke, and it was still night. Or it was night again.

Laurens was on the floor, leaning back against the bedside table. The tray was still there, but with different food, answering Burr’s unspoken question.

Laurens’s eyes were far away. “The funeral’s next week.”

A stab of pain—more tangible and real than anything he’d felt in the last few days since the first night had fallen—shot through Burr’s chest.

Laurens was laughing, laughing, tears running down his face. “I tried, and I tried, and I tried—but for the life of me, I can't remember the last thing he said to me." He turned to Burr, and his smile was contorted and his eyes were anguished. “Burr?” he choked. “I need to know. Please, I need to know.” Through Burr's muddle of fog, he felt Laurens gripping his hand—something real, something tangible. “Did I lose my soulmate?" Burr met his eyes—eyes that conveyed the same depth of loss—of heartache—as Burr’s. Not Mulligan. Not Lafayette. But Laurens. "Or did you?"

Burr's eyes travelled down to his forearm. The black, fountain-pen-like ink seared. Why hadn't he ever noticed? The handwriting matched that of his essays. Always in a hurry. Always writing like he was running out of time.

And now Burr knew why.

Burr gritted his teeth as tears, henceforth ever endless tears, flowed from his eyes. "The exact same words," he gasped, and the voice that escaped his lips was torn and unrecognisable to his own ears.

Laurens crawled into the bed and cradled him, rocked him, cried with him. “I'm sorry,” he sobbed. “I'm so sorry.”

Ah... Those words. Was Burr finally to hear them profusely now? Has his facade of stability finally broke enough for people to realise that he, too, had feelings? That he may have all this while been feeling both his own and others' emotions by tenfold? A hundredfold.

Hamilton was gone forever, and Burr was inconsolable.

**Author's Note:**

> I had to listen to Hurricane and The World Was Wide Enough to get into the mood and to get quotes and yes thank you I’m all snotty and blotchy now this is great who needs a non-broken heart nope not me why do I do this.  
> Thank you for reading, hamfam.


End file.
